Pascal Millery’s journey back to Haiti began one morning in the fall of 2008 when a banker came to his office in Irvington, New Jersey to tell him they would not be closing on five loans that day after all. A mortgage broker, Millery was in the business of buying, repairing, and reselling distressed homes. That fall morning was to be a much-awaited payday.

“I was shocked. I said, ‘What are you talking about? We’ve been planning this for months!’ And then he told me he had just gotten an e-mail: something had happened in the market and his bank was suspending lending operations. In one day, $30,000 in commissions just flew away like the wind.”

What followed was the collapse of the U.S. housing market. After 20 years, Pascal Millery, one of an estimated 1.2 million Haitians living in the United States, thought it might be time to go home. He returned to Haiti in 2009.

After returning, Millery opened Kiskeya S.A., a company that sells construction materials, equipment, and services, in Port-au-Prince. Encouraged after getting several contracts last year to transport supplies for Habitat for Humanity, Millery contacted Peace Dividend Trust Haiti to register Kiskeya for its online business directory in order to access tenders placed there by the hundreds of nongovernmental organizations working in Haiti.

Just as Millery was getting back on his feet in Haiti, another catastrophe awaited: the 2010 Haitian earthquake. Millery was in his office on January 12, 2010 when he says he “heard a sound like the sky was just opening.”

Millery watched his office sway as everything around him crumbled. Two buildings he owned collapsed, but no one in Millery’s family was hurt. He considers himself incredibly fortunate compared to so many of his compatriots who lost homes and lives. And the response to the earthquake gives him hope. “Haiti had always been good to us, but after what happened you really saw the brotherhood and the love of this country and for your fellow Haitian,” he said.

Pascal Millery, owner of Kiskeya Construction, points to where he plans to install his crusher machinery and warehouse on his property outside Port-au-Prince

Today Kiskeya has grown to 18 employees and Millery is focusing on setting up rock crushing machinery and building two warehouses on a four-acre tract in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Tabarre, which will soon serve as his main company location.

Millery believes that providing what he calls U.S.-style customer service and doing a little thinking outside the box will give him an edge over his competitors. He said he obtained several jobs to transport supplies because he found a way to deliver them more quickly than other firms. He’s laying plans for his fleet of trucks to work at night to avoid Port-au-Prince’s legendary traffic jams and speed up deliveries even more.

“A lot of companies here are used to doing business in an environment where nobody really demands anything. They tell customers I can give you this service in two days, and that’s it. Having spent some time out of this country I now know that it doesn’t work like that, your customer has to be happy with the service you are providing.”

Pascal Millery of Kiskeya Construction shows the precious aggregate that will be refined by machinery he’s set to install on his property outside Port-au-Prince.

Millery applauds the campaign by President Michel Martelly to encourage the Haitian diaspora to invest in and return to Haiti. Last week, the president was quoted in Haiti’s leading newspaper Le Nouvellisteas assuring entrepreneurs and investors that his government will put a business-friendly environment in place. However, Millery notes that much remains to be done, particularly with regards to bureaucratic delays and hurdles involved in getting a business license, which is critical to start-up firms for reasons ranging from opening a bank account to importing goods.

“If you’re inviting people to come do business here you need to change this,” Millery said. “When I open a business, I’m going to make this country money and I’m going to help lower the unemployment rate. So it needs to be a smooth process. I’m more tolerant of these problems because I’m Haitian. But others are not. They’ll just go the Dominican Republic and get it done right away. I’m telling you as a businessman, that’s the truth.”

Armed only with his cell phone, Blackberry, and laptop, Millery nevertheless fills his tiny office with a Jersey-style brash confidence that can only give Haiti hope. He insists he and his family are back home to stay and sees limitless opportunity in the construction sector not only for his company but for Haiti itself.

“We have an opportunity for this country to be rebuilt the right way, to put a new system of construction codes in place. People used to just build anyway they wanted to.” He compares Haiti to the cinderblocks that his crushed aggregate will eventually be used to construct, but which in the past have often been built improperly.

“If a cinderblock isn’t made the right way,” he said, “then you won’t have a solid foundation.”